Thinking of Ruby Kendrick

While I was visiting Global Partners’ missionaries in Bangkok, I heard for the first time about a young American missionary who came to Korea in 1907. Her name was Ruby Kendrick.

Ruby Kendrick was born to John Tyler Kendrick and Kate Barnett Kendrick in Plano, Texas on January 28, 1883. When Ruby was four, her mother died. John Kendrick, Ruby, and her two sisters moved in with his two sisters, Mrs. Rachel Klepper and Miss Ellen Kendrick.

Ruby Kendrick graduated from Plano High School in 1903. Interested in pursuing missionary work, she attended Scarritt Bible and Training School in Kansas City, Missouri for two years. After graduating, Kendrick spent a year as a teacher of Bible at the North Texas Training School in Terrell, Texas and also served as a pastor’s assistant at the church there. She spent the following year (1906-1907) at Southwestern University taking additional courses to acquire…